


The Adventure Of The Bishopsgate Jewel (1889)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [107]
Category: Clue | Cluedo - All Media Types, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Jewelry, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Murder, References to Clue | Cluedo, Theft, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 22:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11090889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: A jewel from two centuries ago appears, to be followed by several potential owners. And then by several dead bodies.





	The Adventure Of The Bishopsgate Jewel (1889)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MelodyofWings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyofWings/gifts).



There was often an element of the outré in many of the cases that Sherlock undertook, but surely few were stranger than the matter of the Bishopsgate Jewel. It began in East End of London, and ended in an English country house where what happened was so bizarre, In this instance, I originally withheld publication on the unusual grounds that I honestly believed that people would think I was making the whole thing up! Fortunately the ‘reappearance’ of the jewel, and the then-holder’s willingness to recognize Sherlock’s role in what happened, has decided me that this most bizarre of case should be added to his collected works.

It was an early May morn in ‘Eighty-Nine when, unusually, I breakfasted alone. A great-uncle of Sherlock’s on his mother's side of the family had died, and as he had been inconsiderate enough to live in the distant Scottish county of Clackmannanshire, Sherlock had unwillingly agreed to spend two nights on sleeper trains, attending the funeral on the intervening day. He would be back in King’s Cross in two hours, and I planned on meeting him there, then bringing him back to Baker Street to celebrate his return with coffee and bacon. I could possibly have done without Mrs. Harvelle’s raised eyebrows or her daughter’s smirk as I left Baker Street, although to be fair, she had already summoned me a cab – I had been too much of a dither to plan that far ahead – so I just smiled in gratitude and promptly fell over my feet as I tried to operate the complex mechanics of 221B’s front door. It was a little unfair of both ladies to snigger at that point, and I all but fell down my steps as I tried to escape with my dignity intact. 

The roads seemed even worse than usual, and I began to fret as the cab progressed pathetically slowly towards King’s Cross Station. Heavens, I could probably get out and walk faster! At last however we drew up outside the terminus, and I scrambled up the steps and onto the concourse. There was one of those modern display boards with departures and arrivals on it, and I scanned it anxiously for the train from Edinburgh.

Arrived. Five minutes ago. My heart sank.

“Hullo, John.”

I spun round, and sure enough, there was the scruffy blue-eyed genus, smiling warmly at me. God, I wanted to badly to hug him, even though we were in public.

I did it anyway. Whatever curious looks we may have received from passers-by, I cared not. I had missed the little ruffian so much! 

+~+~+

We were riding back to Baker Street when Sherlock spoke.

“I have been engaged on a case”, he said.

I looked at him in surprise.

“How?” I asked. “You were only gone two days.”

He smiled.

“Like you, I find trains fertile ground”, he said. “Although fortunately I managed to avoid finding a body in the next carriage, unlike someone I could mention!”

I scowled. That was just mean!

“I went to the dining-car for breakfast just after six this morning”, he said, “and met a Reverend Jonathan Green. He is the rector of St. Botolph without Bishopsgate, in the east of the city. Have you seen the papers this morning?”

I blushed slightly.

“I have not”, I said. “I, um, left in rather a hurry this morning.”

His eyes twinkled in understanding, and I gave silent thanks that he loved me enough not to tease me about that.

“You may remember the case of Vittoria, the Circus Belle”, he said. “Because they need to build – or rebuild – the road bridge through her former property and across to the new development, the Great Eastern Railway decided to take the opportunity to make other improvements to the lines into Liverpool Street Station, as there was going to be disruption to services anyway. They were knocking down a house between the line and the vicar's church when they discovered a metal box, which had been hidden beneath a stone slab. A Bible enclosed with it dated the item from two hundred years ago, possibly from the year of the Glorious Revolution. It is known that the family who owned the house back then, the Fontenoys, were Catholics, and that they fled into exile along with King James the Second and Seventh that momentous year.”

I nodded. At least I knew my history.

“The jewel found inside the box is similar in some ways to the famous Alfred Jewel, though slightly larger. Ornate, engraved gold and silver around a large blue sapphire, it is worth many thousands of pounds regardless of its history. And of course, where there is money, there are many people who claim ownership of it.”

“Oh”, I said. “Starting with the Church, I suppose?”

He nodded.

“The Church of England advances a claim that, as the family later sold the land and all things on it to them whilst they were in exile, the jewel is theirs”, Sherlock explained. “There is a Catholic branch of the family who have since returned to England, and a Protestant branch of closer descent who remained here; two members of each. And not forgetting the current owner of the property who purchased it from the Church only recently, a Doctor Hebediah Black. Naturally the Church is disputing as to whether he purchased the rights to what was under the house as well as in it.”

“It sounds a veritable mess”, I said. “Only the lawyers will be happy, with their fat fees from all sides. And they expect you to sort it out?”

“I am invited down to spend the coming weekend at Doctor Black’s country retreat, Wetherly, in central Devonshire.”

“Oh.” 

My face fell. At least until I caught the glint in those blue eyes.

“Bastard!” I muttered.

“Of course, you are invited too”, he smiled. “Did I forget to mention that?”

I glared at him. Just for that, he was only getting half my bacon when we got back.

All right, he got the lot! One soulful look and I just slid the whole plate across the table. Honestly!

+~+~+

Our Devonshire excursion was undertaken mostly via the offices of the London & South Western Railway Company, with a single change at Exeter. The journey across the top of the moors was breathtakingly beautiful, and we alighted at North Tawton Station (which was breathtakingly cold!), where the doctor’s carriage met us and took us the last four miles to the house, some little way south of the village of Spreyton. We reached our destination shortly after five o'clock.

Wetherly was…. well, the phrase ‘Gothic monstrosity' was invented for a reason, and this was a supreme example of what architects could do when either drunk and/or not paid enough. Or possibly too much; the building was some way beyond hideous. It was as if some Bavarian castle had been lifted and dumped in the middle of the English countryside, and then some architect (or possibly just a drunk) had come along and tried to make it look even worse. My eyes hurt as I stared at it in horror.

“Look at it this way”, Sherlock said reassuringly. “It has to be better on the inside than on the outside.”

+~+~+

As it turned out, the inside had a few things that did surprise me. One was a local policeman, Constable Peter Plum, whose name I immediately though appropriate not just because of his choice of shirt colour (which was virulent), but because of his ruddy complexion. A middle-aged and corpulent fellow, he looked rather out of breath, which I later thought odd as I found that he had arrived there some six hours before us.

The second thing that surprised me was Doctor Hebediah Black. Who was missing.

+~+~+

Even such a poor detective as myself could see that the constable was decidedly nervous. As well he might be, I supposed.

“Doctor Black asked me to come here at ten this morning”, he said. “He had brought the Bishopsgate Jewel down from London with him, and was expecting all the various other people who had a claim on it down for the weekend.”

“Are they already here?” Sherlock asked. 

“They all arrived before lunch, as he requested”, the policeman said. “I attended, and it was a strained affair, I can tell you, people sniping at each other right, left and centre. After lunch they all went to their rooms, presumably; the doctor said that he had to write a letter, and would talk to me in under half an hour. I went to the library to pass the time.”

I looked around the small room that the constable had purloined in which to talk to us. Even here, the mauve wallpaper and burgundy-stained wood made me feel more than a little nauseous. I hoped that when the person responsible for this atrocity died, they went to a Hell designed especially for them. Though I somehow doubted that even Hell had an architect this bad - until they got there, at least.

“The doctor’s study is quite close to the library”, the policeman continued, “and both are at the back of the house. As you may have seen, the house is set in a small dean, which means that that part is always quite dark. That was why, when I heard a loud cry at just after two o'clock, I immediately grabbed a candlestick – there is only gas lighting here, not electric - and hurried out into the corridor between the two rooms. There was no-one else about, which I thought odd, but I was trying to obtain entry into the study, and the door would not give. It turned out that someone had moved a heavy bench against the other side, and I was eventually able to push it back enough to gain entry. And inside, I found – nothing!”

I stared at him in surprise.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Not at first”, he admitted. “When I searched the room later, I found two things; some threads from the grey scarf that Mr. Black wore, on his chair, and a small blood stain on the floor by the fire that must have been fresh, otherwise the heat would have dried it.”

“Well observed, constable”, Sherlock said. “What about the servants?” 

“The whole bunch of them are in the clear”, the constable said mournfully. “The annual fair’s visiting North Tawton, and the doctor gave them all the day off up to six this evening provided everything was made ready for his guests, food included. It was just him, the buffet luncheon and the Feuding Five.”

“Tell us about them”, Sherlock said, sitting back in his chair. I stared at him. How he could relax in such an awful room as this?

“They are, as I said, the five other claimants to the Jewel”, the policeman said. “Starting with the Church, the Reverend Jonathan Green represents St. Botolph’s, and is very High Church, the sort who would rain down blood and thunder on his enemies. Fifty-four years of age, and always wears his dog-collar and full vestments. Not so much holier-than-thou as holier than just about everybody!”

“Then there’s the split between the Catholic and Protestant descendants of the Fontenoys, both sides claiming the Jewel as theirs. Up for the Catholics we have Mrs. Patricia Peacock and her daughter, Miss Josephine Scarlett. Mrs. Peacock is on her fourth or fifth husband – even the official records are unclear - and has always done well out of her marriages. All her previous husbands are dead, two in somewhat mysterious circumstances according to the notes the doctor kept, which I read later. Forty-four but doesn’t look it, and I already pity husband number five or six, whoever he is out there!”

I smiled at that.

“Her daughter, Miss Scarlett, is similar in a lot of ways”, the policeman said thoughtfully. “I observed them at dinner, and the word that struck me about her was ‘sly’. I think that she would be just as successful at getting what she wants, and probably even less scrupulous than her dear mama. Assuming that’s possible!”

“The Protestant side of the family is represented by Mrs. Diane White and Colonel Jack Mustard. She is a cook for a family in London, which is a little unusual as she has a decent income from her late husband who died at sea. ‘Homely’ is the word I’d use to describe her, but the way she looked at Mrs. Peacock when they were talking about religion at dinner – well, if looks could have killed…. She is fifty-two, by the way. The doctor's notes state that hers is the senior line, but there was a dubious marriage somewhere along it that may rule her out.”

“Jack Mustard, thirty-eight years of age, strikes me as one of those military types who do not do well in peace-time. The doctor’s file on him was all ifs, buts and maybes; it seems that he was involved with some financial dealings that were close to being illegal. His father James is a low-ranking minister in the government, and seems to have used his influence to protect his wayward son on at least one occasion.”

“And yourself?” Sherlock asked, to my surprise.

“Sir?”

“The doctor invites a local constable to dinner, refuses to discuss matters with him until later, then disappears without a trace”, Sherlock said. “Oh no, come now, constable. You have a connection here in some way.”

Plum went bright red (sorry!).

“I can trust you, sirs”, he said quietly, “because I know your reputation. The doctor's uncle, Mr. Petroc Trevelyan, had an affair with a local woman, and I was the, um, result. He and she both died soon after, and the doctor, he raised me as a cousin, helping me get a job here some time back.”

“Well, we must deal with the present, not the past”, Sherlock said firmly. “Though I rather think that in this case, the past may have a role to play as well. We shall take in the scene of the possible crime.”

+~+~+

The study. Yellow wallpaper. Bright yellow wallpaper. With a distressed fuchsia border (I knew how it felt). I swallowed hard.

The only thing that distracted me from this horror was Colonel Jack Mustard. Who was dead. And even I could see why; a length of lead piping lay bloodied and slightly bent next to his cool body.

“Dead for some hours”, I said after a quick examination, “most probably not long after lunch. Killed by a blow to the back of the head.”

“Indeed”, Sherlock said gravely.

We both looked at him in confusion.

“A single blow”, he explained. “Not normally enough to fell a man, unless it was struck in exactly the right place. Therefore we should consider someone with at least a degree of medical knowledge.”

I thought of the vanished Doctor Black, and a horrible feeling began to creep over me. He could not have.... could he?

+~+~+

The kitchen. Functional, although the dark brown walls made it seem incredibly unwelcoming. And the dead body slumped face down into an apple-pie (what a waste!) did not exactly help matters.

“Mrs. White!” the policeman exclaimed. 

Again, it would not have taken a great detective to piece together what had happened here. The dagger protruding from the dead woman's back was the sort of clue that not even I could miss. I quickly examined the body, and sighed.

“As with the colonel, dead for a few hours”, I said. “This is horrible!”

It got worse.

+~+~+

The ball-room. I would presume that someone thought that sky blue walls with clouds would have given the place a certain air. It had, though probably not what the designer had intended, as the room felt bitterly cold. The black ceiling and floors.... well!

The dead body slumped over the bar did not help matters much, either. I looked at the stunning red dress and made a guess.

“Miss Scarlett?” I ventured. The policeman nodded.

Whoever was doing this certainly was not trying to hide the means of death. A yellow rope hung loosely around the dead woman's neck, and I could see the marks where it had been pulled tight. Again, she had been dead for some little time, although possibly killed after the others.

“I should be getting back to the station to report all this”, Constable Plum said, looking worried. “But I fear....”

He stopped. We all knew pretty well what he feared.

+~+~+

The billiard-room. For a game played with white balls. And the room was like being inside an igloo. The only bit of colour was the blue dress of the now almost inevitable dead body draped across the billiard-table. Mrs. Peacock had been shot at very short range with a revolver, presumably the one which lay on the table next to her. A quick examination suggested that she had been most likely killed before the others, but not by much. This was a massacre!

The policeman looked at his watch. 

“The servants should be getting back any minute”, he said. “I wonder where the vicar ended up?”

+~+~+

The lounge. And sure enough, collapsed into one of the bright green – luridly bright green! - chairs was the Reverend Green, a bloodied spanner lying casually next to him. I ignored the paisley lemon and pink wallpaper as best I could, but could only determine that he had died at much the same time as the others.

Our investigations were interrupted by the sound of the front door, and we almost ran out of the room to find the servants returning home from the fair. Sherlock and Constable Plum took them into the dining-room (where mercifully there were no more dead bodies) and explained what had happened, then spent some time calming them all down. It was arranged that he and the constable would go to the village, Sherlock to send a telegram and the policeman to report the killings, then Sherlock would return here. In the meantime I had to check upstairs for any more corpses. Such was my life!

Mercifully the first floor proved corpse-free, and Sherlock returned in time for a late dinner, whose quality impressed me given how stunned the staff must have been feeling. Though I did not sleep well that night. Having five dead bodies in the house was decidedly off-putting.

+~+~+

Constable Plum returned the following morning.

“The bigwigs down in Plymouth want me to go down and report to them in person”, he said. “They say that this is no case for the Professor.”

“Pardon?” I said.

“My nickname”, he said ruefully. “I worked in Okehampton before coming here, and they already had a sergeant called Peter, so with my spectacles and the medical knowledge that I got from the doctor, I became 'Professor Plum'. Some joker in county put it on my file, apparently.”

“Of course you must go”, Sherlock said, “and the sooner the better.” At the policeman's raised eyebrow he went on, “delaying such a request would only make them think ill of you.”

“That is true”, he admitted. “What are your plans, gentleman?”

“We shall have an early lunch, and then return to London”, Sherlock said. “There is little else we can do here.”

The policeman nodded, and left us. 

+~+~+

“Finding the killer here is going to be hard”, I said, once he had gone. “We have five dead bodies and a missing homeowner.”

We were in the hall – only moderately atrocious orange wallpaper with alternating black and white fleurs-de-lis – and he smiled at me. Then he went across to what looked like a cupboard door, and ushered me over. Once I was there, he opened the door.

“Not again!”

There was another dead body inside, dressed rather fittingly like a funeral director. He had clearly been dead since at least the day before, judging from the colour of his skin alone. A bloodied candlestick lay next to him.

“Doctor Hebediah Black?” I ventured. 

Sherlock nodded. 

“Fingerprints?” I suggested. Sherlock had tested all the other weapons last night, but not found a single print on any of them. He shook his head.

“I would suggest that that is the same candlestick that was used by Constable Plum when he entered the study yesterday”, Sherlock said. “And his will, I guarantee, be the only fingerprints on it.”

“But who killed them all?” I asked, totally confused.

“Constable Plum”, Sherlock said calmly.

I stared at him in shock.

“But why?” I managed at last. “I mean, what motive could he have had?”

“One of the oldest in the world”, Sherlock said. “Love of money. We know that Doctor Black had no children, so the constable was his nearest relative. The two were close, and possibly in time the constable would have inherited Wetherly, with all its architectural atrocities. He may have been prepared to wait, but land is not the investment that it once was, and the appearance of the Bishopsgate Jewel decided him. The only problem was that there were other claimants to it, and it was possible that his cousin might have compromised by selling the stone and splitting the proceeds.”

I stared in shock.

“He plans it exceptionally well”, Sherlock said. “He knows that in major cases, the local policeman is always summoned to the county constabulary office, which this being Devonshire, is in the port of Plymouth. Where there are several fast ships going to the United States and elsewhere.”

“He will get away!” I hissed.

“That was why I sent the telegram yesterday”, Sherlock explained. “Bacchus has two men shadowing him all the way. The moment that he tries to board a ship, he will be arrested.”

I shook my head, trying to grasp who would kill six people like this.

“No-one will believe me if I publish this case!” I moaned. “I mean, it is just incredible!”

“Indeed”, Sherlock said. “It was Constable Peter Plum, with the rope, lead piping, spanner, dagger, revolver and candlestick, in the ball-room, study, lounge, kitchen, billiard-room and hall.”

I glared at him.

+~+~+

He was, of course, proved right as ever. The murderous policeman was arrested boarding a ship for New York, and his evil machinations were ended by a rope similar to the one that he used on one of his victims. The Bishopsgate Jewel eventually passed to a distant cousin of Doctor Black, who on his death years later bequeathed it to the British Museum, and also left me a note asking me to publish this strangest of cases. Which I have so done.

+~+~+

Next time, in resolving a vendetta, we encounter one of the oddest couples that I have ever met.


End file.
